RickB
Super Star Member
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- Sep 18, 2000
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LOL!!
New gravel driveway - What should this cost?
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LOL!!
dmccarty
Super Star Member
I built our driveway with my JD 4700 tractor.
The driveway is about 600ish feet long with a turning circle in the front of the house, a wide curve at a certain point, one culvert, and large parking/turn around area in back of the house and barn area. The driveway is usually 12.5-13 feet wide but the turning circle, parking, and barn areas are wider. The parking and barn areas are at least 36 feet wide and maybe 100 feet long.
I paid to have the ABC aka road base brought from the quarry. I forgot the cost of the ABC but the dump truck ran $55-65 an hour. I build the driveway in stages over a few years so the truck fees changed. You know what the quarry is charging from the rock, so you just need to figure out how much gravel you need, and what the truck fees will cost. I am lucky in that a quarry is nearby and I would get about three loads every two hours. Each load was 15-16,000 pounds which is about 5 yards of ABC. ABC is 3,000 pounds per yard.
The mistake I made was trying to clean the rocks and roots on my driveway which runs through woods. This was impossible and I just dug a trench. Now I figured this out real quick and stopped when the trench was a 100-200 feet long and only an inch or so deep.
We timbered part of our property so I used the logging operation to my advantage. I was able to use part of a skid trail as the driveway and they had taken out most of the trees that were in the way. However, I did have to dig up the stumps with was a PITA with a little back hoe on the tractor. I got it done but it took me maybe 5 work days to dig up the stumps and grade the driveway.
I use geotextile fabric on grade. The fabric was 12.5 feet wide and came on a roll 360 feet long. The price worked out to be about $1 a linear foot if I rounded up. Why use fabric? It keeps your gravel from being pushed into the soil and helps distribute the traffic load which helps reduce rutting.
To order gravel and estimate my costs for ABC and truck time, I figured the driveway was 13 feet wide and 4 inches thick. ABC will compact over time so it is not really four inches. Anyway a yard is 27 cubic feet so a yard of ABC would cover 6'x13'x4" with a bit left over. 15-16,000 pound load would cover about 30x13 feet four inches thick. Pretty simple math to figure out the truck and gravel costs.
With my 48 HP tractor with a 4n1 bucket and box blade I could easily keep up with a single truck making deliveries and that include me spreading the fabric. I would unroll the fabric and the truck would dump on the driveway were I just spread the gravel or he could back onto the fabric a bit and dump. I wanted him to dump so I was not driving the tractor on the fabric. On a windy day putting down the fabric cause me to use bricks, rocks, 2x's etc to hold down the fabric which could take a bit of time but I still was easily able to keep up with the truck.
I think it took me three stages to build the driveway. The first stage was to build the driveway from the road which required a culvert. I think this took two Friday's to build the driveway a 100-200 feet including a turning area. The next stage was pushing the driveway to the house site and including the turning circle which was another 200-300 feet plus the area of the circle. This only took a day or two. The last stage was from the circle to the back of the house which was another 200ish feet but include a large parking/turning area about 36 feet wide. This took another day or so.
Since we were building a house I ordered enough gravel to put in four inches over the fabric. The plan was to let the house construction finished and I would go back and drop more gravel to finish off the driveway. Well, that was years ago and we never put on extra ABC. We always have better use for the money than buying gravel. We have one section of driveway that is deep in the woods that has runoff problems. This is because of the "trench" I mention previously. We need to drop a couple of inches of gravel in this section to raise the driveway just a bit which will keep heavy rain from getting on the driveway. The rain does not cause rutting but the water pools up near the culvert hump which ends up cause two pot holes. Every year we budget money to add more gravely and every year the money gets spent on something more important.
I built the driveway when I had time and money. I also staged the work so that the power company could run in the power to the house site. The power line goes up the driveway for the most part. Once the power was installed, I put in the driveway. Phone service came in a shorter path and did not go up the driveway. We needed the shortest path possible for DSL service so that went through the woods.
Building a driveway ain't rocket science. A small tractor can easily do the work. Two summers back we paid about $200 an hour for a LARGE dozer to take down some trees. The dozer had a 11-12 foot wide blade and he had a tight fit up our driveway. A much smaller tractor and dozer can easily do the driveway. Not sure of the hourly rates in our area but I would guess $50 for a smaller machine.
As others have suggested, make sure you have enough space on the driveway for emergency equipment. Make sure you keep that space open after construction as well. A couple of my neighbors have allowed trees to grow in so that delivery trucks will not go up their driveways. I hope they never need EMS or fire service because those trucks cannot go up their driveway either. A pole saw is pretty cheap and easy to use every few years......
Later,
Dan
The driveway is about 600ish feet long with a turning circle in the front of the house, a wide curve at a certain point, one culvert, and large parking/turn around area in back of the house and barn area. The driveway is usually 12.5-13 feet wide but the turning circle, parking, and barn areas are wider. The parking and barn areas are at least 36 feet wide and maybe 100 feet long.
I paid to have the ABC aka road base brought from the quarry. I forgot the cost of the ABC but the dump truck ran $55-65 an hour. I build the driveway in stages over a few years so the truck fees changed. You know what the quarry is charging from the rock, so you just need to figure out how much gravel you need, and what the truck fees will cost. I am lucky in that a quarry is nearby and I would get about three loads every two hours. Each load was 15-16,000 pounds which is about 5 yards of ABC. ABC is 3,000 pounds per yard.
The mistake I made was trying to clean the rocks and roots on my driveway which runs through woods. This was impossible and I just dug a trench. Now I figured this out real quick and stopped when the trench was a 100-200 feet long and only an inch or so deep.
We timbered part of our property so I used the logging operation to my advantage. I was able to use part of a skid trail as the driveway and they had taken out most of the trees that were in the way. However, I did have to dig up the stumps with was a PITA with a little back hoe on the tractor. I got it done but it took me maybe 5 work days to dig up the stumps and grade the driveway.
I use geotextile fabric on grade. The fabric was 12.5 feet wide and came on a roll 360 feet long. The price worked out to be about $1 a linear foot if I rounded up. Why use fabric? It keeps your gravel from being pushed into the soil and helps distribute the traffic load which helps reduce rutting.
To order gravel and estimate my costs for ABC and truck time, I figured the driveway was 13 feet wide and 4 inches thick. ABC will compact over time so it is not really four inches. Anyway a yard is 27 cubic feet so a yard of ABC would cover 6'x13'x4" with a bit left over. 15-16,000 pound load would cover about 30x13 feet four inches thick. Pretty simple math to figure out the truck and gravel costs.
With my 48 HP tractor with a 4n1 bucket and box blade I could easily keep up with a single truck making deliveries and that include me spreading the fabric. I would unroll the fabric and the truck would dump on the driveway were I just spread the gravel or he could back onto the fabric a bit and dump. I wanted him to dump so I was not driving the tractor on the fabric. On a windy day putting down the fabric cause me to use bricks, rocks, 2x's etc to hold down the fabric which could take a bit of time but I still was easily able to keep up with the truck.
I think it took me three stages to build the driveway. The first stage was to build the driveway from the road which required a culvert. I think this took two Friday's to build the driveway a 100-200 feet including a turning area. The next stage was pushing the driveway to the house site and including the turning circle which was another 200-300 feet plus the area of the circle. This only took a day or two. The last stage was from the circle to the back of the house which was another 200ish feet but include a large parking/turning area about 36 feet wide. This took another day or so.
Since we were building a house I ordered enough gravel to put in four inches over the fabric. The plan was to let the house construction finished and I would go back and drop more gravel to finish off the driveway. Well, that was years ago and we never put on extra ABC. We always have better use for the money than buying gravel. We have one section of driveway that is deep in the woods that has runoff problems. This is because of the "trench" I mention previously. We need to drop a couple of inches of gravel in this section to raise the driveway just a bit which will keep heavy rain from getting on the driveway. The rain does not cause rutting but the water pools up near the culvert hump which ends up cause two pot holes. Every year we budget money to add more gravely and every year the money gets spent on something more important.
I built the driveway when I had time and money. I also staged the work so that the power company could run in the power to the house site. The power line goes up the driveway for the most part. Once the power was installed, I put in the driveway. Phone service came in a shorter path and did not go up the driveway. We needed the shortest path possible for DSL service so that went through the woods.
Building a driveway ain't rocket science. A small tractor can easily do the work. Two summers back we paid about $200 an hour for a LARGE dozer to take down some trees. The dozer had a 11-12 foot wide blade and he had a tight fit up our driveway. A much smaller tractor and dozer can easily do the driveway. Not sure of the hourly rates in our area but I would guess $50 for a smaller machine.
As others have suggested, make sure you have enough space on the driveway for emergency equipment. Make sure you keep that space open after construction as well. A couple of my neighbors have allowed trees to grow in so that delivery trucks will not go up their driveways.
I hope they never need EMS or fire service because those trucks cannot go up their driveway either. A pole saw is pretty cheap and easy to use every few years......Later,
Dan
dave1949
Super Star Member
This is something to think about. If you have a better or different idea later, will you bear the cost of moving the driveway? Probably not. So the driveway becomes this design anchor that you will live with most likely.
I guess you have your reasons, but I noticed you are surrounding the pole building with driveway, as opposed to just improving the existing drive and extending it beyond the apron area. This is adding significantly to the overall length of driveway that you need to plow in winter and maintain over the years, in addition to the initial costs.
buickanddeere
Super Member
My driveway and yard is just 6-8" of gravel on top of the native clay. Doesn't rut or sink even with truck traffic when wet.
Dr_Zinj
Veteran Member
You'll see 15 feet in a lot of building code as the required width of a driveway. Mostly to enable firetrucks and other rescue vehicles to make the turns in the driveway without leaving the roadbed.
